Emily McKay - Baby for the Tycoon

Jonathon stood at the far end of the room, back to the door, staring out at the view of Palo Alto sprawling below. Randy sat dead in the center of the table, stacks of paper spread out before him. The lawyer looked up when she entered. He half stood and offered her a strained smile.

“Oh, good. You’re here,” he said as if he’d been waiting for her. “We can get started.”

“Hi, Randy.” She looked past him to Jonathon. When he turned around, she raised her eyebrows in question.

“What’s up?”

He frowned and with unusual hesitancy said, “I asked Randy here to draw up a prenuptial agreement for us.” He held out a hand to ward off some protest he imagined she might make. “Don’t worry. I trust his discretion.”

“I’m not worried.” In fact, delighted was more like it. “Calm down. I think a prenup is a fantastic idea.”

“You do?” Randy looked surprised.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She sat down in the chair opposite Randy. “I assume Jonathon told you why he’s helping me?”

Randy gave a little nod, still looking suspicious.

“This is a marriage custom-made for a prenup.”

“In the interest of full disclosure…” Randy ran a hand over his hair, which today looked disheveled, though it was normally meticulously styled to hide his growing bald spot. “This is not my area of expertise. I told Jonathon he should hire a good family lawyer, but—” Randy winced.

“But Jonathon can be very pig-headed.”

“I was going to say determined.”

No wonder the poor guy looked so disconcerted. Jonathon had obviously browbeat him into drawing up the prenup. And doing it on a very tight schedule, since Jonathon had proposed less than twenty-four hours ago.

“Don’t worry.” Wendy reached across the table and patted Randy’s hand. “I’m sure you did great. It’s all pretty cut-and-dry.”

Jonathon took a few steps closer to loom over them from the end of the table. He’d shoved his hands into his pockets in that way she found so distracting.

This was the man who was going to be her husband. In less than a week. Her stomach tightened at the thought.

“Okay, let’s see this puppy. It’s just your standard prenup, right?”

Reaching for the stack of papers in front of Randy, she clapped her hands in a way that was overly cheerful, as if this was a big fake check from Publishers Clearinghouse. But neither man noticed. Randy was too busy sending Jonathon a pointed glance and Jonathon was too busy glaring Randy into intimidated silence. She looked from one man to the other.

“This is a standard prenup? Right?”

Jonathon cleared his throat and loomed some more.

“You have nothing to worry about. Any assets you bring to the marriage or inherit while married revert to you upon the absolution of the union.” Randy flushed bright as he spoke. Just in case she’d seen through his obfuscation.

Ignoring Jonathon, she looked pointedly at Randy, waiting for him to cave. “That’s not what I asked, now, is it?”

He cleared his throat. “You… urn… have nothing to worry about.”

“Yes, you said that already. What about him?” She nodded in Jonathon’s direction.

“The prenup was written to my specification,” Jonathon said tightly. “I’m satisfied.”

Which was not the same thing at all.

Randy blushed all the way to his receding hairline, but refused to look at her. Jonathon, on the other hand, met her gaze without even flinching, which actually made her more nervous.

“Give me a minute.” Neither man budged. “Alone. With the prenup.” Still no movement from the united front. “Either you give me time to read it or you—” she pointed at Randy “—tell me what it is he doesn’t want me to see.”

Randy looked to Jonathon, who glowered at her for a second before granting a tight nod. Randy pulled her copy closer and flipped to a page midway through.

She scanned the paragraph, then read it aloud to give voice to her exasperation. “In the event of separation, annulment or divorce, the following premarital assets belonging to Jonathon Bagdon shall transfer to Gwendolyn Leland—the monetary value of twenty percent of all real property, tangible property, securities and cash owed by—”

She broke off in frustration, too stunned to continue. She glared at them both. “Whose idea was this ridiculous clause?”

Randy held up his hands. “Not mine.” He sounded as offended as she was.

“But you let him include this? Are you insane?” She clenched and unclenched her fingers around the pen Randy had handed her as he gave a what-could-I-do shrug. She smiled tightly at him and said through clenched teeth, “Will you please give me a minute alone with my future husband?”

Randy skittered away like a death-row inmate given a pardon. She didn’t blame him. Someone was going down. She wouldn’t want to get caught in the crossfire either.

The second they were alone she asked, “Twenty percent? Twenty? Are you crazy?”

Jonathon at least had the good sense to try to sound placating. “Now, Wendy…”

“You know I’m not taking twenty percent!”

“After two years being married to me, you may think you’ve earned it.”

She blew out a breath of exasperation. “I’m not taking. A penny. Of your money.”

“Don’t forget, California is a community property state. If you don’t sign the prenup, you’re entitled to half of anything I earn while we’re together. For all you know that could be more than this twenty percent.”

“What? Because you haven’t been meeting your full potential before now?” He just scowled at her. “You know that has nothing to do with why I’m marrying you.”

“I also know exactly how much money you make and that you’ll have trouble supporting yourself and a child on that income.”

“Lots of single-parent families get by on what I make,” she pointed out.

“Maybe they do,” he countered. “But you don’t have to.”

“So what? You’re just going to give me all of that money? Did you somehow miss the conversation yesterday where I mentioned that I’m a Morgan? Trust me when I tell you, Jonathon, I will be fine.”

His lips curved into the barest hint of a smile. “No. I didn’t miss that, but I also know how damn stubborn you are. And I know that you’re not going to ask your family for money. If you were the kind of person who would do that, you wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.”

Hmm. Good point. “But,” she countered, “you thought you’d talk me into taking twenty percent of your assets?”

“No. I rather hoped you’d sign the prenup without noticing that part.”

Well, that she could believe. He was just arrogant enough to think he could get away with a stunt like that.

“Even if I had signed the papers, I still wouldn’t have taken the money. That’s almost—” She struggled to do the math. Jonathon, no doubt, knew exactly how much that was, to the dime, at any given moment. “That’s… tens of millions of dollars.” Certainly more than the trust she’d never bothered to claim, which was a measly eight million. “I’m not taking that kind of money from you.”

He shrugged dismissively. “It’s a drop in the bucket.”

“It’s a fifth of the bucket. That’s a lot of drops.” She forced out a long. slow breath. Why was she angry? Why exactly?

She put voice to her thoughts as they came to her, not willing to give herself time to soften them. “Look, you’ve always been arrogant and controlling.”

He raised his eyebrows. Probably in surprise that she’d say it aloud to him. He certainly couldn’t be shocked by the idea.

“At work, it’s fine,” she continued. “You’re my boss. But if we’re going to get married, then the second we walk out that door each day—” she jabbed a finger toward the door “—you have to stop trying to control everything. Even if this isn’t a real marriage.”